Personal Finance

Do You Really Want to Achieve Your Goals?

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Make your goals a priority in your daily schedule. PHOTO | FOTOSEARCH

The most common challenge I register working with clients is that most people have challenges finding enough time to pursue their goals.

You will agree that it is certainly a common issue most of us face as we go about our lives doing our best to balance family, work, social and other parts of life. Here I am making time on Wednesday night writing an article that was due on Thursday before 12 noon each week for editing and preparation before Monday publishing.

Allow me to recommend a simple exercise whenever you find yourself in a situation where you just can’t seem to find the time or enthusiasm to “do the work” required to move you from where you are to where you desire to be. It could be anything from starting a business, moving jobs, going back to school, starting a family or buying a home.

Ask yourself the all-important question: “how much do I REALLY want to do this?”

Hold on to that answer as I share something I have found to be painfully true in mine and the lives of many others. You know —at any given time — we all do exactly what we want to be doing. There are times we may do certain things out of fear, to score points, avoid embarrassment or to fulfil an obligation. Whatever the reasons you tell yourself or others, the truth is that you control what you do at any given moment.

And what you are doing right now — reading this article, by definition, is something you have given priority over any and all of the other things you could be doing.

You can tell me that you do not have enough time to pursue your goals however many times it suits you. I remain unconvinced that you are too busy to do what needs to be done to get you to your goal. It is not an issue you can simply classify as procrastination either. In fact, I am convinced that the underlying issue is that you have lost the ability or willingness, to be honest with yourself and the rest of the world about what you do want and what you do not want. I sincerely hope this is a temporary situation of dishonesty.

Doing what others want you to do is programming so deep that you suppress your own true wants in favour of other people’s wants and needs. Is it a wonder you procrastinate?

If you truly want to achieve your goals, go out and achieve them. Period. If you do not want to achieve your goals and instead do what you enjoy, please ahead and have enjoyment as your goal. Forget about all your other flowery politically correct goals.

READ: Set yourself up for success with highly ambitious goals

My thinking is that if you are not going to be totally honest with yourself, no amount of effort, luck, or even divine intervention is going to get you to your goals because you do not ever point yourself in that direction.

A good teacher once told us: “The truth shall set you free.” Now I am not talking about going to a confessional to unburden your conscience about which commandment you have broken. Being honest is being clear to yourself if to no one else about the real reason you are not making the time to achieve your goals.

I say “making time” because, by natural law, you do have to make time within your 24 hours because no one gets the 25th one. We all the same time allotment to work with as we please.

What are your goals made up of? Are they authentically yours? Are the payoffs from their achievement big enough to fire up your belly? If they are not, you will not put in the work required for their manifestation no matter how many people urge you on.

What does the voice inside you — the real you tell you that you want to do? Is your answer in line with utmost desire for yourself?

Before you go indulging yourself at the expense of your most meaningful goals, please bear in mind that success is achieved by doing what failures do not like to do.